11/07/2018

The Catholic Church Needs a Change in Tone at the Top, which Requires a Change in the Top

The National Review Board chairman called for changes to the “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People” to “make it a less ambiguous document” because despite nearly every diocese meeting its standards in third-party audits, some bishops are facing scrutiny about their handling of reports of wayward priests.

Francesco Cesareo, the board’s chairman since 2013, ...

“This is much more of a crisis of a failure of leadership,” he said.

“It is frustrating because on the one hand, you know that the church has put in place all of these policies and procedures, which have definitely made a difference. All of these allegations are historic. (There are) very few new ones,” he said.

“What’s frustrating is that there’s been this collapse in leadership,” Cesareo continued. “That’s the real frustrating part. There hasn’t been a recognition to the level of responsibility that needs to be taken on the part of leadership to address this in a way that minimizes this from possibly happening in the same way again.”

I agree that the response of too many of the Bishops has been a huge part of the problem (although not the whole problem, obviously), which is why my article on proposed reforms to the Dallas Charter includes a section on "Changing the Tone at the Top by Changing Who is at the Top."

Having the right tone at the top of an organization is critical to establishing a proper culture of compliance within the organization, but when the organization’s leadership has lost credibility achieving that correct tone requires replacing those at the top. Accordingly, this section proposes shifting responsibility for investigating and adjudicating sexual misconduct cases from the extant system of Church tribunals overseen by the diocesan bishop to an independent review board. It further proposes the creation of a national review board under the auspices of the USCCB to investigate and adjudicate charges against bishops of sexual misconduct or enabling of abusers. Finally, this section draws on an analogy to corporate audit committees to suggest certain features that should be incorporated into these bodies to insure their independence and competence.

These proposals will run afoul of current canon law. They offend the canons on the limited powers of national conferences, the extensive powers and rights of diocesan bishops who answer only to the Pope, and role of tribunals, bishops, and the Vatican in conducting investigations and trials. As we have seen, however, canon law can be changed.